jeff

Tower went from being one of my favorite music stores in SF to a parking lot to wha??? a costume store where you can get your Halloween garb... yes, it's true. Check out this awful footage. I mean c'mon, they barely even tried to cover the old "Tower Records" Signage...



OK, here's a less, but still pathetic attempt at covering up...



Here's a close up of all the costumes you can buy...



OK, OK - I realize that it's probably a temporary situation, but it's just another reminder of the current state of the industry. It's just too difficult to try to make money selling physical CDs anymore via a brick and mortar store. Let's just take a quick look at what's happening at the world's most successful digital store:

In July, according to MacWorld, iTunes surpassed its 3 billionth song sold. Apparently, it took less than 3 years to sell the first billion, one year to sell the second, and less than 6 months to sell the third. There's a cool blog to check out at http://playlistmag.com/weblogs/ipodblog/2007/07/3billionsongs/index.php

It basically breaks down the math - approximately 5 million downloads per day, 200 thousand per hour, and 3,400 per minute. Pretty incredible. In April of this year, Apple announced that it had sold its 100 millionth iPod... unreal. With that, there is an entire industry now of companies that make accessories for the iPod. According to Apple, there are over 4,000 accessories ranging from speakers to funky cases.

Steve Jobs has certainly helped millions of people accelerate their passion for music. Is it a good thing? I certainly think so... but maybe not for the Tower folks... and I can only imagine that there will be even more stores closing down before Halloween is over. I wonder what transformation will take place at the former Tower store after October... stay tuned.